When you hear something on the news about tigers most people think of India which has the largest tiger population in the world or they think of their local zoo. I know that is how it has been for me, never in my right mind would I think of my home state of Texas. I guess that has to change now since I heard a local Austin radio program discussing tigers the other day.
I’m sure you have heard the saying, “He’s got more money than he has sense.”, well evidently that saying is true for a bunch of my fellow Texans. I will also say that the people we elected to run this state have even less sense than most could imagine. I try not to rag on my fellow Texans but sometimes I just have too, and today is one of those days.
According to Jeff and Ed, who host an afternoon talk show on KLBJ AM radio in Austin from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM weekdays, Texas has the second largest population of tigers in the world. India has the largest, Texas is second, and I can assure you that isn’t because we have a ton of tigers in a bunch of zoos around the state.
All of what I am about to share is second hand knowledge from listening to these guys, but I can tell you that these guys don’t make stuff up, and I trust what they said that day is true.
Evidently some wealthy Texans have taken a shine to having exotic pets, particularly tigers. Personally I don’t consider any animal that can bite off an arm or your head to be a “pet”, I think of them as time bombs. Some of these time bombs have been going off as of lately.
They cited a couple cases in which a ten year old girl was killed by a tiger in north Texas and another case where a kid had their arm bitten off at the shoulder by her grandpa’s tiger. They also mentioned a recent case where the Harris County Sheriff’s office had to track down two white Siberian tigers and shoot them with tranquilizers because the tigers escaped the owner's cage and were roaming the neighborhood.
So we have some dumb ass people who think that a wild animal, that is a carnivore, can be tamed to the point that its natural instincts won’t kick in. I am guessing that these people have moved into this state from California as the tech jobs have been moving here from there. I just refuse to believe these are native Texans housing these animals as pets, but oil money can make people lose their common sense too.
Speaking of loosing common sense, the Texas legislature has come to the realization that we have the second largest population of tigers in the world and that these animals might be just a tad on the dangerous side. So, one member of the Texas legislative body has come up with a proposed bill that would address the issue. Does that mean you will only be seeing tigers in public zoos in Texas if the bill gets passed into law?
That would be the logical assumption, but we are talking about politicians fixing the problem, so the answer is “no”.
The folks in Austin who run this state don’t think tigers are a problem, the cages are the problem. So they are working on passing legislation that will have minimum requirements for cages that should be capable of holding in the meanest, nastiest tiger you can imagine, yep, that will solve the problem according to them.
I’m pretty sure that if the legislation passes there will be some state agency that will have to be created to oversee this industry. More than likely a tiger owner will only be allowed to keep their time bomb, I mean tiger, if they have a cage constructed by an approved state licensed tiger cage builder. That same builder will probably be a cousin or brother in law of a Texas politician in Austin, because that is how we do it here, we are known as a “good old boy” form of state government. Where the good old boys get the contracts that government mandates.
How about just outlawing the damn things?
No, that would be the logical thing to do and logic doesn’t exist in politics; money does. The people who can afford these time bombs can also afford to write campaign contribution checks that have six or seven figures written on them before the decimal point. So, that is what is more than likely driving this decision to require specific cages.
Specific cages won’t solve the problem; did I mention the 10 year old girl was killed inside the tiger’s cage? Oh, I didn’t. Well she sure was, her step father who owned the tiger let her inside the cage with the tiger. There is where the true problem comes to light; these people have more money than they have common sense.
The truth is you can’t fix stupid, and that goes for both tiger owners and politicians.
Until next time,
@sultnpapper
